Transcript: Kerry, Hatch

Aug 30, 2009

Page 10 of 17

WILL: Newt Gingrich has a piece in the Washington Post this
morning saying since the Second World War, only Gerald Ford and Bill
Clinton had lower poll ratings than Barack Obama now has after seven
months. If that is true, it is because the independents are leaving
him, and more important, the elderly are.
In 2008 -- and everyone in Congress knows this number -- in 2008,
40 percent of the votes were cast by voters 50 years old or older. By
2030, when the baby boomers have all retired, there will be more
Americans 65 years old or older than there are Americans 18 or under.
This is the politics of gerontocracy.
And what we're learning is that those to whom health care is most
important are most wary of this program.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know what's interesting, Gwen, is that
Senator Kennedy is one of those Democrats who would have had the most
credibility with senior citizens, could sell the deal if that's indeed
-- if one did indeed come together.
IFILL: Yes, and there's -- there's a big debate going on about
whether Senator Kennedy actually had the magic wand and could have
influenced the direction of this debate. I don't think that's
resolved at all.

But it's also clear that people are reaching for something.
There was a great deep breath taken this August. There were, you
know, no shark attacks and, you know, no hurricanes that actually...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Unless you were at a town hall meeting.
IFILL: Unless you were at a town hall meeting.

(LAUGHTER)

Well, the town hall meetings filled the void. And maybe they
wouldn't have been -- wouldn't have gotten attention. There would
have been unhappy people, but it wouldn't have been so vitriolic in
the way it did, consume so much time.
Ted Kennedy's death made people stop and pay attention to
something else for a few days. Now, we'll see what happens when
everybody comes back to town, back to school, in Washington, after
Labor Day, and whether they start from a different spot or whether
everything keeps going downhill. STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, and that's the -- I was, you know, Sam,
watching these two senators there, it seems like there's this sense
that because, in the wake of the death, you want to be a little bit
more civil. You want to try to find this common ground. But then,
the closer you listen, there's still huge differences here.
DONALDSON: Oh, absolutely. Two months ago I was talking to Tom
Daschle, who might have been but isn't HHS secretary, but still is
influential on the Obama Side about health care, who said then, we may
just have to push it through with reconciliation in the Senate,
meaning...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Democrats only?

DONALDSON: Yes, the Democrats only, because, if they don't get
something that is meaningful -- Ted Kennedy is right; Ronald Reagan,
the same way, you take what you can get from the standpoint of half a
loaf, rather than nothing whatsoever. But half a loaf, in this case,
if it doesn't produce the goals, particularly of reducing the increase
in health care expenses, isn't good enough.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And, E.J., there's a problem with this whole
Democrats-only strategy -- a couple of problems.